The director of New Moon has signed with Stephenie Meyer’s publishing house, Little,Brown, to publish a post-apocalyptic YA trilogy in 2014. According to MTVs Hollywood Crush:

According to the announcement from publisher Little, Brown, the literary trilogy-to-be will kick off with “The Young World”: a story about the teenage sole survivors who inherit a destroyed and desolate earth, after a cataclysmic event kills off every person on earth not between the ages of 12 and 21. Ill-equipped to restore society to working order, the surviving residents of New York City must try to rebuild their world from the ground up—a tough charge for any decimated population, but especially difficult if you’re trying to save your species from annihilation while simultaneously going through puberty. Drama will abound!

Let us know in the comments if you think the book sounds good and what your opinion is on Weitz taking a stab at YA.

Well, sort of. Demian Bichir is currently one of the OSCAR nominees for his role in Chris Wietz’s first post Twilight film called A Better Life. He tells Collider that it came about because of a New Moon meeting.

Hadn’t you met with Chris Weitz a few years prior to making this film?

BICHIR: It was not so many years back, but I got a call from my agents saying that I had an audition for New Moon. It was not in my plans to become a vampire, but I wanted to meet Chris Weitz. So, I went to talk to him and I remember that we started talking about this gardener. He started telling me everything about this story about an undocumented worker, and I just couldn’t get it straight. I thought it was a gardener vampire, or something like that. I was a little bit confused. And then, he told me, “We don’t have a script yet, but I’d like you to read it, as soon as we have it ready.” A year later, I got ahold of the script and I fell in love with it instantly.

Chris Weitz talked to Variety about working with younger and less experienced actors. This certainly came into play on his most recent film A Better Life and on New Moon.

Casting a young actor amounts to more than just selecting one person to fill one role, according to director Chris Weitz.

“It’s important to me that I meet the family before we hit the set, so that they know enough about me to trust me,” he says. “What they’re really doing is giving over a chunk of their kid’s life.”

With credits that include “About a Boy” in 2002, Weitz has found success casting newcomers. The most recent addition was Julian as the teenage son of a Mexican gardener in the U.S. illegally in “A Better Life.”

While he considers casting a first-timer as “taking a leap into the unknown,” the risk, he says, is worth it.

“You know you’re going to get a certain fresh and unstudied quality rather than someone who has been influenced by the world of TV, which is really where a lot of kid actors get their first break,” Weitz says.

The nominations for the annual Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards were just announced. Along with The Golden Globe Awards they are considered to be a OSCAR predictor. Demian Birchir who starred in New Moon director Chris Weitz’s first post Twilight outing, A A Better Life. was nominated as Outstanding Actor. This is quite a feat for a low budget, indie film starring a relatively unknown actor of Mexican descent. Suffice it to say, it was on almost no critic’s predication list.

Demián Bichir, a 48-year-old Mexican actor little-known to American moviegoers, scored a surprise best actor nomination at the SAG Awards on Wednesday morning.

Bichir, who plays an illegal immigrant pursuing the American dream in “A Better Life,” beat out a couple of projected favorites in the category, including “Shame’s” Michael Fassbender and Gary Oldman from “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” Directed by Chris Weitz, “A Better Life” has only grossed $1.8 million at the U.S. box office.

The foreign star was only one of a handful of actors to receive a nomination who had not graced the lists of awards prognosticators. In the lead actress category, nearly all of the nominees were considered shoo-ins, namely Meryl Streep for “The Iron Lady” and Michelle Williams from “My Week with Marilyn,” though it was slightly unexpected that Glenn Close earned a nod for her cross-dressing turn in “Albert Nobbs.”

He is up against stiff competition including perennial favorites George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Leonardo DiCaprio among others.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) will honor CHCI alumnus Orson Aguilar, executive director at the Greenlining Institute, and Hollywood writer/director Chris Weitz at its Closing Luncheon on education during the 2011 CHCI Public Policy Conference on September 13 at the Washington Convention Center.

Aguilar will be presented with the 2011 Distinguished Alumnus Medallion of Excellence Award, and Weitz will be honored with CHCI’s 2011 Excellence in Service Award.

Orson Aguilar is part of the new wave of civil rights and community leaders focused on ensuring that the American dream remains accessible to all Americans. In his role as executive director of The Greenlining Institute, Aguilar advocates for communities of color on issues such as the environment, community reinvestment, philanthropy and leadership development. Aguilar works to make positive social change and continues to be a role model for future CHCI Alumni.

In honor of his excellence in filmmaking, his work to give voice to the Latino American dream and his efforts to create positive change through the arts, writer/director Chris Weitz will receive CHCI’s Excellence in Service Award. Chris Weitz most recently directed “A Better Life,” a multi-generational immigrant story about a father’s love and everything a parent will sacrifice to build a better life for his child, which Summit Entertainment released on June 24, 2011.

“We look forward to honoring two extremely deserving individuals in Orson Aguilar and Chris Weitz on September 13,” said Esther Aguilera, CHCI President & CEO. “Orson represents the next generation of American leadership and we are proud of what he has accomplished since his CHCI Fellowship in 1996-1997. Chris Weitz’s distinguished career in Hollywood is bested only by his commitment to shedding light on the immigrant story and creating awareness of the American dream story so many in our community live every day.”

After the closing luncheon, attendees are invited to take part in a special screening of “A Better Life” and take part in a question and answer discussion with Chris Weitz.

After the awards presentations, Reps. Raul Grijalva and Nydia M. Velazquez will host a high-level discussion on education. This session will engage experts in a dialogue on how to increase Latino education attainment, which is imperative to reach the national goal of 60 percent higher education attainment by 2025. The session will also feature Allan Golston, president of U.S. Programs at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

To read the honorees’ full bios or to register for the Public Policy Conference, please visit www.chci.org.

Erik Feig(a Summit Executive), Melissa Rosenberg (Twilight Saga screenwriter) and Chris Weitz (the director of The Golden Compass, New Moon and A Better Life) have cited the Harry Potter films as industry inspirations and changers. In the above photo, taken at the A Better Life premiere, Erik Feig is standing to Chris Weitz’s immediate left:

Erik Feig:

‘”There was a sea change with Harry Potter,” says Erik Feig, president of worldwide production at Summit Entertainment, which has made the Twilight movies. “The story has a younger protagonist, but the book series and the movies are greatly enjoyed by older people, too. I devoured the first book and gave it to every grown-up I knew. We saw the same thing with Twilight. We did not ghetto-ize it as a young-adult movie. Nor did they with Harry Potter. They drew all audiences. It was an inspiration to us.”

Chris Weitz:

“The impact of the Potter series has been tremendous in that it has essentially become the idea of a modern franchise,” says director Chris Weitz (Twilight: New Moon; The Golden Compass). “They latched onto something that has its own sequels built in. Now everyone is looking for a literary property that extends enough for them to keep on building.

“It’s led to this speculative bubble in mystical young-adult fiction. Twilight found its own way to hit upon the hunger for the supernatural and a particular time of life. But if you look at the bookshelves now, half of what is coming out in (young-adult) fiction is about a werewolf or a vampire or angels or demons. The other half is about magic and wizardry.”

Melissa Rosenberg:

“The Harry Potter filmmakers and screenwriter Steve Kloves really respected the fans,” says Melissa Rosenberg, who has written the screenplay for each Twilight movie. “When you’re adapting a book series and you have that kind of fan base, you really have to deliver. You can’t just use the books as a jumping-off basis for another story. When I see a Harry Potter movie, I forget what is missing. Because Kloves is taking me and those kids on the same emotional journey as the book does.”

Chris has recommended NYC places before which were all great choices. Now he’s talking LA food with THR:

“Director Chris Weitz shot his new drama, A Better Life, released June 24, on location primarily in and around East Los Angeles. The film tells the story of a gardener and illegal immigrant (Demian Bichir) who is striving to keep his teenage son (Jose Julian) away from gangs. The movie follows the two as the father purchases a pickup truck to get ahead in business only to see it stolen.

“It’s an adventure about the father and son learning to speak to each other and getting to know each other as they go in search of this truck,” says Weitz.

During the course of the 38-day shoot, Weitz, the director of The Twilight Saga: New Moon and About A Boy (with his brother Paul Weitz), also discovered some of the area’s best places to eat, from authentic Mexican joints to one of the city’s most inventive Nuevo Latin restaurants. Here are his top five spots to hit when exploring the Mexican cuisine of L.A”